The day before Collins High School was set to celebrate its KHSAA Class AAAA football state title, another group of students approached the school board to discuss a decision not to allow them to compete in a national competition.

The Shelby County Board of Education on Thursday approved an elementary redistricting plan that it had presented to citizens at two previous meetings.

The only change from the original proposal is that students living on Scott Station Road will remain at Painted Stone Elementary School. There was no discussion of the matter at the board meeting Thursday night before it was approved unanimously.

The Shelby County Board of Education on Thursday is scheduled to vote on an elementary redistricting plan that it had explained to citizens during two public meetings.

The district has decided that redistricting, at the elementary level only, is necessary going in to the 2014-15 school year when the new Southside Elementary School opens and can hold another 150 students.

The redistricting eliminates some overcrowding issues at Painted Stone, Simpsonville and Clear Creek, all of which are between 99.5 percent and 109.8 percent occupancy this year.

Shelby County Public Schools is sending students to college at greater rate than the state average, but the district really is excelling in keeping students there.

According to the Kentucky High School Feedback Report released early this week, Shelby sent 63.3 percent, or 429, of its 2010-11 seniors to college in the 2011-12 school year, compared to 60.2 percent of the state.

Shelby County Public Schools, in its continued push to ensure that students are college or career ready when they graduate, will require all students to take vocational classes early in their high school careers.

Superintendent James Neihof, in his report Thursday to the Shelby County School Board, outlined this new approach as he discussed the vision administrators had presented to the board about striving for college readiness and the ideas proposed for career readiness.

The Shelby County Board of Education will hear during its regular meeting Thursday night that the school district’s Intelligent Classroom Initiative nearly is complete.

Tommy Hurt, the district’s chief information officer, who will give the report at 7 p.m. at the district’s offices, 1155 Main St. in Shelbyville, said the plan is to bring all the schools up to a higher level of technology.